Subject: Re: The IETF Mission

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 10:39:51 -0800 (PST)

*> 
  *> Lets take an example. I have been involved in QoS work, and there have been
  *> a number of specifications written on the subject; much of that started 
  *> with white papers, including especially
  *> 
  *> 0896 Congestion control in IP/TCP internetworks. J. Nagle.
  *>       Jan-06-1984. (Format: TXT=26782 bytes) (Status: UNKNOWN)
  *> 
  *> 0970 On packet switches with infinite storage. J. Nagle. Dec-01-1985.
  *>       (Format: TXT=35316 bytes) (Status: UNKNOWN)
  *> 

Fred,

Please note that these references are to published RFCs, which are
available in perpetuity in the official document archive of the
Internet community, the RFC series.  It is an illustration that
publishing significant white papers and discussion papers as RFCs has
real value, which is being lost lost in what you correctly characterize
as an over-emphasis on "standards".  We are letting the marketing types
rule.

  *> 
  *> To leave white papers and internet drafts, many of which are never 
  *> published as RFCs and a relatively small portion ever become standards, 
  *> out, and to leave the discussion part out is, I think, to leave out much of
  *> the real value of the IETF. Yes, both of those predate the IETF as we now 
  *> know it, but had the IETF existed then, they would have been very 
  *> appropriate in it. Today's counterparts include papers like some I 
  *> currently have posted (not intending to self-aggrandize, but they're the 
  *> one's I know most quickly). The posting of questions, problems, and ideas 
  *> is perhaps *the* key part; standards are from my perspective only one of 
  *> the products, and perhaps a byproduct. 

Yes. So let's consciously endeavor to ensure that sigificant
non-standards documents -- responsible position papers, white papers,
new ideas, etc.  -- become RFCs.  (Making Internet Drafts into an
archival series seems like a terrible idea to me, but that is a
different topic.)

Bob Braden

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 22:03:19 +0100

On 18-jan-04, at 19:39, Bob Braden wrote:

> So let's consciously endeavor to ensure that sigificant
> new ideas, etc.  -- become RFCs.

Sigh. Even more RFCs. Pretty soon we're going to need a 32-bit RFC 
number space.

> (Making Internet Drafts into an archival series seems like a terrible 
> idea to me, but that is a different topic.)

Actually it's pretty much the same topic, as there needs to be a way to 
preserve drafts that are important in some way or another. One way to 
do this would be to make all drafts that are worth preserving an RFC. 
This means drastically lowering the standards for what can be published 
as an RFC. (Note that this brings us closer to what RFCs used to be 15 
years or so ago.) Another way to do it would be to simply archive all 
drafts. I agree this has the unpleasant side effect that all those 
drafts that become obsolete (or are so from inception) stay around 
forever. But it's still better than the current situation, where making 
something an RFC means an incredible amount of work for many people, 
but not doing it means that ideas that may have taken days or weeks to 
write down are pretty much lost forever. Even the emails announcing the 
availability of new drafts are archived longer.

I think there is some middle ground where expired drafts that are 
referred to in non-expired drafts are kept, as well as any drafts that 
are implemented and possibly drafts that a certain n number of people 
feel are interesting in some way.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 16:59:31 -0500

> archival series seems like a terrible idea to me, but that is a

Out of curiosity, where would the I-D that described Mail-Followup-To: fall in
this spectrum?  This is an example of something that's widely deployed(*), and
definitely not a "non-standard", but we (for whatever reason) never got an RFC
out the door.

There's been other good ideas, or reasonable starts at same, that have expired
out of the I-D directory and never been published.  And unfortunately for the
person doing the literature review, this is a big problem, because the drafts
that *aren't* published are an important resource for ideas, both good and bad.
Yes, you still get to dig for which of the two it was, but in either case, finding
that the same (or similar idea) has been proposed before can be important... 

(*) So far this year, I've received 598 pieces of mail with one, out of 9,017
mails I saved the headers for (which included all the spam I've seen so far).
So in at least some communities, it's being used by a significant percentage of
users.  Compare to 559 for multipart/signed, for which (a) there *is* an RFC
and (b) 150 of which were my own postings to mailing lists...

---

From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:17:31 +1100

Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
	[..]
> preserve drafts that are important in some way or another.

If it is important, it'll progress the work of some group in the
IETF and be archived as an RFC. If it (the I-D) doesn't capture work
well enough to be archived as an RFC then it ought to fade from IETF
I-D storage. If the authors (or someone else) feels strongly that there's
still material in their I-D of value, 'archiving' it on a personal website
for google to find.

Or put differently, it is important for the IETF's collective clarity of
focus that IETF-hosted I-Ds decay and disappear if not actively maintained.
Whether or not an interested 3rd party (or I-D authors) maintain their I-Ds
beyond the expiration date is a separate issue.

> One way to
> as an RFC.

Is the standard for Informational currently that onerous?

> Another way to do it would be to simply archive all
> forever.

Yes, that's a major problem. Organizations need to clean out their
clutter on a regular basis just like individuals do.

> But it's still better than the current situation, where making

Then perhaps we encourage WG members to post a summary of their non-RFC
ideas to the WG mailing list around the time when work is wrapping up.
The ideas will thus survive (to be found through Google) as long as the mailing
list archive is around. If the author wants something longer lived, there's always
personal websites.

cheers,
gja
-- 
Grenville Armitage
http://caia.swin.edu.au
I come from a LAN downunder.

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 00:27:24 +0100

> IETF and be archived as an RFC.

Really. What's the number for the GSE RFC again? Even current work such 
as draft-ietf-idr-as4bytes-07.txt stays in draft limbo for years.

> If it (the I-D) doesn't capture work
> I-D storage.

I agree it would be nice if things worked this way but they don't.

> If the authors (or someone else) feels strongly that there's

Again, this simply doesn't work well enough in practice. Very little 
web content stays in the same place for many years, and for a variety 
of reasons, some things can be incredibly hard to search for in search 
engines.

> Is the standard for Informational currently that onerous?

I guess I'll have to find out...

> clutter on a regular basis just like individuals do.

This argument is bogus as long as mailing list archives for stuff like 
draft announcements are kept.

> The ideas will thus survive (to be found through Google) as long as 
> the mailing list archive is around.

Searching in such an archive is only possible if you know the search 
terms in advance. For instance, the draft I mentioned earlier isn't 
easily found when searching for "32 bit as number".

---

From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:12:29 +1100

> On 18-jan-04, at 23:17, grenville armitage wrote:
	[.]
> as draft-ietf-idr-as4bytes-07.txt stays in draft limbo for years.

I suspect this speaks more to the focus of the authors of those documents
than any particular lack in the I-D development process. IMO, of course :)

	[..]
> draft announcements are kept.

I don't quite see it that way. A mail list archive quite clearly conveys
the sense of "this is a snapshot in time of things in the past" whereas our
I-D repository has/had the semantics of "this is current thinking of someone,
somewhere in the IETF" (for current <= 6 months). So I believe in mail
archives far more than I believe in permanent I-D archives.

	[..]
> easily found when searching for "32 bit as number".

I can't see how this would be improved by storing I-Ds in a well know,
permanent location. You'd still have trouble searching inside the archive
on ambiguous search terms.

cheers,
gja

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 19:47:20 -0800

Bob,

I agree that many works of great value can be found in early RFCs.  But 
here's my question to you: if the focus is too much on standards, how do 
  we scale the process so that we can have great works that are NOT 
standards?  Clearly neither the IESG nor the IETF need be involved in 
that process, so long as the work does not misrepresent itself as a 
standard or other IETF-type work.

Now, you may say that the RFC Editor should take that job.  Okay.  Then 
I presume we need to scale the RFC Editor to this sort of task.  Another 
way of looking at this would be to create some sort of refereed track. 
That would be fine, but then it seems to me that the day of ASCII has to 
really come to an end (IMHO). (and with the mention of ASCII, why do I 
feel as though I've just violated Godwin's Law?)

By the way, I think we should also ask where our role ends and where the 
role of SIGCOMM and the like pick up (he says trying to pay his dues ;-).

Eliot

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Jan 2004 04:13:48 +0000

> ... Another way of looking at this would be to create some sort of
> refereed track.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  (who shall govern the referees?)  note that
for a long time, peter salus begged the Computing Systems readership for
articles, and usenix ultimately closed it down due to lack of submissions.
i'm really not sure another refereed document series could find traction in
a world that already has an rfc editor, usenix, sigcomm, and so on.

> role of SIGCOMM and the like pick up (he says trying to pay his dues ;-).

while we at isc are hardly referees, i note with interest that one of the
publications at www.isc.org/tn was written by someone whose day job is
elsewhere, but he thought that "isc technote" was the logical place to put
this work, and we agreed.  with that remark i do not imply a solicitation,
but if isc and icann-secsac can each do their own document series, and if
the root name servers can publish c.root-servers.org/october21.txt as an
independent (non-series) document, then havn't we achieved gutenberg's goal,
doesn't everybody have their own printing press, and can't we either choose
an existing refereed forum for non-standards work, or just self-publish it?
-- 
Paul Vixie

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 22:38:02 -0600

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "grenville armitage" <[email-masked]>
To: "IETF Discussion" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: The IETF Mission

> Is the standard for Informational currently that onerous?

I'm curious what the average time-to-publish from first draft to RFC
for Informational RFCs is. And that would be a very interesting
statistic for this discussion.

Spencer

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 00:22:22 -0500

> an existing refereed forum for non-standards work, or just self-publish it?

Having your idea published isn't equivalent to having your idea heard.

At least for well-known refereed forums, one can make the guess that "maybe
an ACM or IEEE or whatever has relevant publications".  Self-publication is
dependent on getting a good Google ranking (more or less).

---

From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Jan 2004 07:40:56 +0000

> Having your idea published isn't equivalent to having your idea heard.

of course not.  most new documents in any series are ignored.  very few
people other than professional propeller-heads in ivory tower actually
read every article in acm-sigcomm or every rfc that comes out or whatever.
(computing systems, and the usenix proceedings, are notable exceptions,
with many hundreds of interested readers who at least skim everything
since it's likely that they know most of the program committee personally.)

> At least for well-known refereed forums, one can make the guess that
> "maybe an ACM or IEEE or whatever has relevant publications".
> Self-publication is dependent on getting a good Google ranking (more or
> less).

two things.  (1) people who want a reference will use google first, and
will search it thouroughly, before checking to see if acm or usenix or
ieee knows something that google hasn't heard yet.  (2) all publication
is dependent on promotion, whether the journal is refereed or whether
it's just up on the company web server.

so if you want to know that your pubs are available to interested parties,
put them where google can find them and you're done.  and if you want to
know that your pubs are skimmed by not-yet-interested parties, talk about
them in public and hope you motivate some lurkers.  (it's sort of like spam
in that way, though i wouldn't recommend trying to get a credit card number
before you show someone your content if you're using a list like ietf@ to
generate interest.)
-- 
Paul Vixie